The present invention relates to a form for facilitating the dispensing of controlled substances. Forms of this type are commonly used by hospitals to dispense and track the use of federally controlled narcotics.
Hospitals and other authorities are commonly required to provide a strict accounting of the disposition of controlled substances, e.g., narcotics such as morphine and cocaine. One type of form commonly used by hospitals to account for controlled substances is best described as a shingled narcotic form set. The shingled form comprises a base ledger sheet made up of rows and columns. Glued at the top of the sheet is a short ply receipt portion. Below the receipt portion are glued approximately 25 short sheets or tickets. The short sheets are shingled so that the top line of each ticket is mated with a single row on the ledger. Each form ply has a matching form number. On each ticket are pre-printed code numbers and names of approximately 40 controlled substances. A form is used for each controlled drug packet dispensed. Drugs come packed in various dose quantities, e.g., 10, 15, or 25 doses. Each ticket represents a single dose.
According to a typical scenario for utilizing the shingled narcotic form set, when a nursing station uses up their last dosage of "Cocaine Topical Solution," a nurse sends the spent ledger card down to the hospital pharmacy, and requests a re-order for a packet containing 25 doses. The pharmacist fills-in the top receipt portion of the form, listing "8076--Cocaine Topical Solution" as the drug. The pharmacist runs a highlighter through this pre-printed name down through the 25 shingled tickets and sends the drug along with the form to the nursing station. The nursing station places the form in a 3-ring notebook for controlled substances.
Next, Dr. Smith prescribes for patient Jane Jones, one dose, 4.times.day of Cocaine Topical Solution. Nurse Barnes fills out the top portion of a ticket with the patient information etc., which also yields a carbonless image on the ledger. The nurse then pulls the ticket from the ledger, runs it through an Addressograph with the patient's billing information, and places it in a stack of other tickets. Jane Jones gets the dose. Dr. Quinn prescribes Cocaine Topical Solution to John Doe. This information goes on the same form. John Doe gets the cocaine, and this information is recorded on ticket #2. Each dose is handled this way. Even wasted doses use a ticket. If a 1/2 dose is prescribed, the other 1/2 is reported as a fractional waste dose. There is a further portion of the form to list discrepancies and explanations. At the end of a shift, a whole stack of imprinted tickets are sent down to the pharmacy for billing. The pharmacist has to key each ticket in individually. When all doses have been dispensed, the journal card goes back to the pharmacy to re-supply the nursing station.
The shingled narcotic form set is very expensive to produce, and is very labor intensive for the forms user. Multiple handwritten entries are made, and information from the ledger and tickets must be separately keyed to a computer, lending this process readily open to human error. Accordingly, there is a need for an improved controlled substance dispensing form that is cost-effective to produce, minimizes the amount of time a forms user must set aside to actually use the form, alleviates the need for multiple handwritten entries, and minimizes human error by eliminating the need for separate manual data entry and automated data entry operations.